Following Jesus is much more than just an intellectual exercise. There is believing, and there is belonging to each other, and there is also, must be, behaving. Followers of Jesus are to look and act and speak differently. This is a view shared not only by Pietists, but by many Christians, but Pietists (says Olson […]

“We will pray for your recovery as soon as the pastor gets here.” We hear words like that too often. It is indicative of the clergy-laity divide that assumes that clergy have clearer and more direct contact with God, and even more it means that clergy play the most important role in matters of faith […]

From my earliest days, I learned about the importance of the Bible. I would sing: “The B I B L E, Yes that’s the book for me….” I was given my first Bible when I graduated from 6th Grade Sunday School. I “earned” a beautiful Bible when I was Confirmed–signed by my pastor with the verse […]

I am beginning a new series taking a look at the six proposals offered by Philip Jacob Spener to correct the conditions of the church. Spener (1640-1705) was a German Lutheran minister who called the church to a more heartfelt commitment to Christ.His six proposals are found in his book Pia Desideria (Heartfelt Desires for a […]

The challenges they had faced together had taught them humility— the need to subsume their individual egos for the sake of the boat as a whole— and humility was the common gateway through which they were able now to come together and begin to do what they had not been able to do before. Brown, […]